A largely forgettable weekend, notable more for events away
from the board.Jessica pulled out due
to pressure of school work. I was unable to find a suitable replacement for
Saturday which meant incurring our first default for over two years.We did offer to field a competent male player
on Board 8 to provide a proper game, but this was rejected.With hindsight I guess I should have fielded
an incompetent player thus saving us the half point default penalty but
providing a pointless game.

Of the games that were played, it looked quite close on
paper and we did draw those 3½-3½ although for some while this looked rather
unlikely. Quite soon, on the bottom four boards, we were a pawn down in each
game for varying degrees of compensation. Dave looked to have a significant
development advantage, but this soon evaporated and a blunder hastened the end.

Martin would have had
equality in his game if he had played 14....f5!He had missed that after 15.b4 Qb5 16.a4 a backward diagonal queen move
16....Qd7 defends the pawn on f5.Instead
14....c6 allowed 15.Qf3 f6 16. c4! after which he is close to lost.The end was swift: 16....a5 17.a3 Qg5
18.Bxc6! bxc6 19. Qxc6+ Kb8 20. Qb6+ Resigns as 21. Re6 follows.

With the default, this left us 3½ points down with some
rather dubious positions, but there was then a gradual recovery.

Roger had somehow managed to
win his pawn back and retain dangerous threats to the White king. Here he
played 41....g6 allowing 42.Qd4 swapping off queens into a drawn R + P
ending.Instead, 41....f5 would have
produced instant resignation as 42.Qd4 Qf1 43.g4 f4 leads to mate.

Ian’s opponent not unreasonably turned down a draw offer but
then blundered in time trouble.I played
the Grünfeld for only the fourth time in my life.I sacrificed a pawn, but as the book I bought
after the game states “Black’s compensation for the sacrificed pawn is
considered insufficient and the line has disappeared from practice”!Later, I was allowed to swap off into a drawn
R+P ending.Steven was utterly lost
apart from the small but significant detail that Steven’s opponent had left
himself with 20 seconds for his last 10 moves.Somehow he kept his scoresheet up to date but lost on time with two
moves still to make.There was an
element of confusion as Steven thought the hour that was added to the clocks
meant that he had made 40 moves.Fortunately, a spectator who is a qualified arbiter fetched the chief
arbiter while the clock was still showing whose time expired first.Gavin won the exchange and had a completely
won position, but in time trouble he allowed the liquidation of all the
queenside pawns so only drew.

For the second year in succession I was forced to miss the
dinner in the local pub in order to return home and bring back Gillian on the
Sunday.Yet again, I suspect a
conspiracy as everyone said the food was very good.Possibly unwisely, Ian kindly agreed to act
as captain in my absence in order to submit a revised team list once we knew
the identity of our opponents.I spoke
to Ian on the phone at around 9.20 pm once I had got home. Ten minutes later I
had another phone call from Martin.Having just had two mouthfuls of his dinner, Ian had complained of
feeling unwell and was taken back to the hotel just remembering to pass the
baton of the team sheet on to Martin before leaving.

Arriving from my marathon round trip, I wasn’t able to find our
pairings. This was my fault for going straight to the playing hall where
the pairings had been put up the previous day. Some of the pairings were
on show, but not ours. I was worried at this point that their
non-appearance was in some way connected with Ian’s condition. I
should have known to use the front entrance to the hotel and look on a pillar
there!

Despite Bristol being White on odds in their previous two matches and Wessex
having Black on odds in their previous two matches, it was ordained that
Bristol should get White on odds in this match as well. Apparently this was
entirely our fault for not having performed in line with our seedings.Had we been playing Bristol in the promotion
pool the colours would have been reversed.I’m afraid that this is yet another in the long list of reasons why I
dislike the split division format.

Ian had been returned to semi-working order but the bump on his head had
clearly damaged his Houdini properties as he lost.Worryingly, he was still complaining of
feeling unwell.(He has since visited
the doctor and the hospital to undergo a battery of tests and is now feeling a lot
better.)On the only board where we held
a rating advantage, Martin made an old man very happy as his over aggression
against the Colle backfired allowing Franklin to score his first win for
Bristol.Gavin, David, Roger and Gillian
all drew without too many dramas.I
sacrificed a pawn and never quite got enough for it before blundering in time
trouble.Steven’s position was extremely
cramped and he was a pawn down in an ending at the time control.He was allowed to create sufficient
counterplay so that by the end he was if anything slightly better.

This loss means that we slump to the bottom four in the relegation
pool.All is not yet lost however as we
should be capable of picking up some points in the final weekend.Whether it is worth making huge efforts to
stay in the second division is another matter.